Informed Comment is the excellent Blog of Juan Cole, a Professor of History at the University of Michigan. It is required reading if you want to be several steps ahead of the MSM in understanding Iraq and trends in the Middle East.
In today's
post he outlines the first reality based option I've seen offered for cleaning up the mess made by Boy George and his den of thieves:
The United States will eventually have to go to the United Nations and request that it send a peace-enforcing mission to Iraq, as the US military withdraws. The relevant model is the
UNTAC experience in Cambodia , which, while it had substantial flaws, was also a relative success. In the long term, perhaps 5-10 years, the Iraqi government may develop its own military that could keep order. [snip]
This would be a great issue for Democrats. It is a clear plan. More below the fold...
The good Professor continues:
The United Nations force put into Iraq should be a peace-enforcing, not a peace-keeping, force. That is, its rules of engagement should allow robust military operations to prevent the parties from massacring one another, and UN troops should always be permitted to defend themselves resolutely if attacked. Further, the United States should lend the United Nations forces close air support upon their request.
Moreover, the UN must at the same time enter into serious negotiations with the warring parties (Kurds, Shiites, Sunni Arabs) to seek a political settlement. [snip]
All Iraqis would see the United Nations as having more legitimacy than the United States. The UN would be much more likely to be able to negotiate a settlement among the Sunnis and Shiites than is the US. And, the world has more troops than the US does. (The Europeans are over-stretched, so the force would mainly come from the global South. Iraq does not want neighbors involved, so South and Southeast Asia seem likely providers of troops.)
Would the Iraqi government accept a United Nations military mission? Almost certainly. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has often attempted to involve the UN, and would welcome such a development. The Sunni Arabs would also much prefer to deal with the UN than with the US.
And here is the key for Democrats:
Of course, the Bush administration may well resist this move right to the end. But that makes this plan an ideal platform for the Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008. Instead of Kerry's vague multilateralism, let us specify an UNTAC-like mission for the UN. The entire world depends on Gulf petroleum; the entire world should step up to ensure security for Iraq and the region. The US will continue to have to bear a significant share of the costs, but these would become bearable if several allies shared them.
As recently as the 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower still saw the United Nations as a noble project eseential to the welfare of the United States, and he denounced the 1956 invasion of Egypt by Britain, France and Israel for endangering the UN ideal. Ironically, the Bush administration's attempt to do a unilateral end run around the United Nations could afford the American Left the opportunity to make international cooperation and international law popular again with the US public. The alternative for Americans is to continue to squander blood and treasure on a task too big for one country, even the world's sole superpower.
Let's drive this solution to a Tipping Point. It will make the world a safer place and hand the neocons a crushing defeat.